Mass spectrometer and method for using same
OwnerMark E. Bierinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Apparatus including an ion trap, a controller connected to the ion trap, wherein the controller includes a memory containing computer readable instructions which, when executed, cause the controller to send control signals to the ion trap so that the ion trap produce and maintain a trapping field in the ion trap, a waveform generator to change the trapping field so that ions of a predetermined mass in the trapping chamber are selectively moved; a secondary waveform generator to change the orbits of the ions; an energy source to excite ions to emit photons, an optical detector to detect the emitted photons, and a processor which can apply fast-Fourier transform analysis of the time-domain signal of the detected emitted photons to generate a frequency or mass spectrum related to mass-to-charge ratio of the ions.
Claims28
A method of frequency or mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) analysis comprising the steps of:
- injecting ions into an ion trap mass spectrometer;
- applying one or more trapping waveform signals to the ion trap to retain the ions inside the ion trap, wherein each ion of the ions has an initial orbit;
- applying one or more resonance excitation waveform signals to the ion trap to resonate a portion of the ions into a different orbits in the ion trap;
- exciting the portion of ions in the different orbits to emit photon signals;
- detecting and acquiring a time-domain photon signal of frequencies of the portion of the ions in the different orbits in the ion trap;
- and
- applying fast Fourier transform analysis to obtain the frequency spectrum related to a plurality of m/z ratios of the portion of the ions.
A method of mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) analysis comprising the steps of:
- injecting ions into a Fourier transform-based ion trap mass spectrometer;
- applying one or more waveform signals to the ion trap to cause the ions to be trapped and to follow orbits in the ion trap;
- exciting a portion of the ions in the orbits to emit photons;
- detecting and acquiring a time-domain photon signal of frequencies of the portion of the ions in the orbits in the ion trap;
- and
- applying fast Fourier transform analysis to the time-domain photon signal to obtain a frequency spectrum related to a m/z of the portion of the ions in the orbits.
An orbitrap mass spectrometer for frequency or mass-charge ratio (m/z) analysis comprising:
- an ion source;
- an optical orbitrap having a plurality of electrodes and an aperture, wherein the ions produced by the ion source are injected into the optical orbitrap through the aperture;
- an excitation source juxtaposition to the optical orbitrap to excite a portion of the ions trapped in the optical orbitrap to emit photons;
- a detector juxtaposition to an electrode of the plurality of electrodes to detect photon emission frequencies emitted from the portion of the ions;
- a preamp/digitizer in electrical communication with the detector to digitize a time-domain photon signal of frequencies of the portion of the ions;
- and
- a computer electrically connected to the preamp/digitizer (i) to receive the time-domain signal of the ions, and (ii) to perform a Fourier transform of the time-domain signal into a frequency spectrum related to m/z for the portion of the ions.
A Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer for frequency or mass-charge ratio (m/z) analysis comprising:
- an ion source;
- a Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer (FTMS) having a plurality of electrodes and an aperture, wherein the ions produced by the ion source are injected into the FTMS through the aperture;
- a waveform generator electrically connected to the FTMS to apply a resonance excitation waveform to at least one electrode of the plurality of electrodes to provide coherence of the ions and to resonate the ions having the same m/z;
- a photon source directed towards the FTMS to overlay cyclotron orbits of the ions trapped in the FTMS to excite the ions;
- a detector juxtaposition to an electrode of the plurality of electrodes to detect the photon emission frequency of the emitted photons from the ions;
- a preamp/digitizer in electrical communication with the detector to digitize a time-domain photon signal of frequencies of the ions;
- and
- a computer electrically connected to the preamp/digitizer (i) to receive the time-domain signal of the ions, and (ii) to perform a Fourier transform of the time-domain signal of the ions into a frequency spectrum related to m/z for the portion of the ions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.